Stuff

The Sunday papers have the first two voting intention polls conducted since the draft Brexit deal was unveiled:

Opinium in the Observer have topline figures of CON 36%(-5), LAB 39%(+2), LDEM 7%(-1), UKIP 8%(+2). Fieldwork was Wednesday to Thursday and changes are from a month ago (tabs)

ComRes for the Sunday Express and Sunday Mirror have topline figures of CON 36%(-3), LAB 40%(nc), LDEM 9%(nc), UKIP 7%(+2). Fieldwork was also Wednesday to Thursday, and changes are from late September (tabs)

Both polls show Conservative support dropping and both now show a Labour lead (though ComRes were doing so anyway), both also show an increase in support for UKIP. It is, as ever, just a couple of polls and it’s worth waiting to see if it is reflected in other polling. However, in both cases the fieldwork was also on Wednesday and Thursday, so would have straddled the release of the draft deal and partially taken place before the resignations of Dominic Raab and Esther McVey. In other words, we may not be seeing the full impact of the latest troubles yet… and that’s not to mention what leadership ructions we may see in the week ahead.

(Note there was a Panelbase poll published yesterday, but the fieldwork for this took place at the start of the month, so sheds no light upon any possible impact of the Brexit deal.)

“I may be missing something here, but isn’t it the case that if Parliament votes against the May deal, that there will then be no deal on the table? So there’d be no point in putting that option in a referendum.”

Could Parliament pass the deal with an amendment asking for some sort of confirming referendum?

Can anyone explain what the process is for amendments? I understand the Government have changed the procedure to make amendments more difficult to pass.

I may be missing something here. After all, I haven’t read the 585 pages…

But isn’t it the case that the “May Deal” is basically the Withdrawal Agreement provisionally accepted in outline a year ago, -when DD was DfExEU sec – and written up in proper legalese to have Treaty Status? That the only bit of that that was deeply contentious was the NI backstop, that they’ve been arguing about that non-stop for a year and arrived back more or less where they started? And that the PD is non-binding waffle?

You arent wrong. Though in fact the backstop argument was pretty synthetic, because as you point out it was really only arguing about possible alternatives which might be inserted now rather than at a future date.

No one is surprised. Its a set piece battle where the tanks have been in position for a year. if the government has been waiting for anything, it can only have been for public opinion to change.

What bit of controlling immigration has this government and its predecessors done with regards to non-EU immigration? I’ll tell you….nowt. Your trust in them is sweet though.

So if we leave the EU and ‘take back control’ of our borders, do you think we will suddenly start controlling anything?

Take a look at any ‘secondary’ high street in any city. Chances are it’ll be full of Turkish barbers and kebab shops. All with an inexplicably high number of staff. I don’t recall Turkey being in the EU.

Repeat this for many other non-EU countries and you get an idea of how much the government wants to/can control immigration.

I suspect they did not have defined direction, as we are seeing in the polls. Much of the issue surrounding EU will end up being party political. You can see it even on this site. that conservative supporters are going to support May because their belief that this is the only acceptable conservative deal, I suspect that had Corbyn been in power the same papers and people will be saying this is a massive betrayal. My perception is that as with all things policy is not important tribal politics is.

I have said this one several times, but May went hard Brexit because that is what Tory membership wanted in the main. 80% of the membership voted to leave. She could not ignore them. I do believe she was waiting for something to break her way but basically she ran out of time. I suspect she has been hoping for support to swing behind Brexit or Remain to a level that was unambiguous to the other side but I also believe she has been trying to keep the party together and in the end staying in power is more important for all side of the Tories than any view of principle.

What I have found interesting is the fact that for a large proportion of the public that going back to the EU would amount to a loss of face. So part of why I believe we are going to crash out is that saying we were wrong is just a step to far we prefer to live with the consequences that admit an error of judgement. Something that I believe is very common as a human trait.

It is definitely worth looking at Iraq polls. They are fascinating. People could not remember that they were in favour of the war and we can forget that was our position for the majority before during and for a considerable period after until it all started going bad.